


Trapped Here With You

by AstroGirl



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen, Locked In, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 18:15:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1397692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroGirl/pseuds/AstroGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regina and Mary Margaret are trapped together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trapped Here With You

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Trope Bingo for the prompt "locked in," and featuring a bit of Old School Regina.

Regina stops just inside the door to the hospital ward, drinking in the sight in front of her. Mary Margaret Blanchard sits at the unconscious man's bedside, not for the first time, and certainly not for the last. She's holding his hand, but it's a light, awkward kind of touch: a woman attempting to comfort an unresponsive stranger. Her head is turned away a little, but not so far that Regina can't see her face. Her eyes are lost, and sad. As they should be.

Regina strides over to the bed. "Hello, Ms. Blanchard."

The schoolteacher looks up. "Oh! Madam Mayor! Hello." The pathetic, lonely expression is instantly banished, replaced by her usual disgusting feckless cheer. Sometimes Regina just wants to smack that look off her face, but, alas, she knows it wouldn't be nearly as satisfying as it sounds. Plus, direct physical violence has never really been her style.

Instead, she gives Snow-- gives _Mary Margaret_ one of her patented smiles, bright solicitude stretched tight over pure acid. She's not entirely sure these days that she remembers how to smile any other way. "I thought I'd come to see how our John Doe is doing," she says. "After all, I do still feel responsible for him." 

And _that_ , of course, is what she's come to remind herself of. A reminder she needs more and more now, as the monotonous days of the Curse pile up into months. Into a year now, or very close to it. It bothers her that she's starting to have some difficulty keeping track.

She flicks her fingers idly through the comatose prince's hair. Not a prince anymore, of course, not here. Here's he's a comatose _nobody_. He doesn't stir, just lies there, breathing, even more useless than he was before. The thought flits across her mind that perhaps he's better off than any of them, her included. 

Damn. This is _not_ helping. She wipes her fingers on her clothing, as if she's touched something distasteful. 

Mary Margaret is chattering on now about "John Doe"'s vital signs and what Dr. Whale's said about the strength of his heart. Regina pays no attention, unable to take her eyes from the slack, empty face. "He's drooling," she says.

"Oh! Here, I'll get that." Mary Margaret pulls a tissue from the box at Charming's bedside and gently wipes his mouth and chin. 

Well, there, that ought to have some amusement value. The mighty hero, reduced to drooling on himself like a baby. But the tenderness in Mary Margaret's gesture just makes Regina's mood even sourer. "How charming," she mutters, but of course she's the only one capable of getting the joke.

The box of tissues is empty, apparently, and Mary Margaret tosses it in the trash. "I'll go and get some more," she says, standing up and making her way across the room towards the supply closet.

Idly, Regina follows her across the ward and through the closet door. This, too, ought to be entertaining: Princess Snow rummaging her way through boxes of rubber gloves and bedpans. She steps forward, ready to make some cuttingly belittling remark, but it comes out as an "Ow!" as her toe hits hard against something. She looks down just in time to see a wooden doorstop skittering across the floor, and turns in surprise as the closet door slams shut behind them.

Mary Margaret drops her box of Kleenex and dashes forward. "Madam Mayor! Don't--" She breaks off with a look of dismay.

"What is it?" says Regina, looking down at her shoe in irritation. With the door shut, the light from the single bulb in here isn't very bright, but she's pretty sure that's left an ugly scuff mark. "Oh, now look what you've done!"

"Me?" Mary Margaret sounds genuinely offended, and that's rather pleasant, but probably not enough to make this entire trip worth it. Regina sighs and tugs on the door.

It doesn't open.

"There's a problem with the lock," Mary Margaret says apologetically. " It doesn't open from the inside."

"What? How did _that_ happen?"

Mary Margaret shrugs. "It's been like that as long as I can remember."

No doubt meaning as long as the hospital, and the entire town, has existed. Regina bites back a snarl. It annoys her that her town appears to have come equipped with built-in flaws. There are more than a few of them, from the stoplight on Third Street that's never worked to that sign that Marco is always fixing. She's never been sure if this reflects some imperfection in the curse, or whether it was meant to add some sort of realism. Knowing the person who created it, it might well have been deliberately intended to drive her crazy.

She rattles the door, violently, and begins drawing up mental lists of who to punish for this, starting with the hospital maintenance staff and slowly working her way up to Mr. Gold. 

"That's not going to help," Mary Margaret says. "I'm afraid we're stuck." She sounds as exasperated by the idea of being locked in here with Regina as Regina does by the idea of being locked in here with her. Somehow, that fact fails to make Regina feel better. "But don't worry," she adds. "I'm sure someone will come and let us out. We just need to yell." She puts her face next to the door, too close to Regina's, and cries out, "Help! Help! Is anybody out there? We're stuck! Help!"

For a moment, Regina just watches her. Then, rolling her eyes and trying hard not to think about how humiliating this is, she joins in. But all that happens is that both of them scream themselves hoarse.

Regina kicks at the door -- why not, her shoes are already scuffed up -- and swears at it. Her hands itch for magic, for the power that could blast this stupid obstacle off its hinges. God, she misses that. Every day, she misses it.

"Hey, it'll be okay," says Snow. "Don't worry."

"Oh, spare me your stupid optimism!" Regina growls, and slaps Snow's comforting hand away from her arm. This is _not acceptable_.

"No, it will. There'll be a nurse through on her regular rounds in an hour or so. She'll probably need to come in here to get supplies."

Regina gives her a poisonous look. "An hour, trapped in a closet with you? It might as well be eternity."

Snow -- _Mary Margaret_ \-- looks hurt, then looks as if she's had a thought, then looks sympathetic, all in the space of a few irritating seconds. "Oh, my god, are you claustrophobic?"

"No!" 

Mary Margaret doesn't seem to believe her. "It'll be all right. Really. Just take a few deep breaths, and we'll find a pleasant way to pass the time. If you want..." She smiles hesitantly. "We could talk?"

"About what?"

"I don't know. Anything you like."

"I've got nothing to say."

"Fine. Suit yourself." Mary Margaret sits down on the floor, and leans back against some shelves, her hands tucked into her armpits. It doesn't look very comfortable. And even if this is a hospital, Regina doesn't trust the floor to be particularly clean. Wrinkling her nose, she looks around, spies a sturdy-looking plastic bucket, and turns it upside down to create a makeshift seat. Regina, who once sat on a throne. She wonders what her mother would think.

When she looks over at Mary Margaret again, she sees that her eyes are unfocused and there's a strange, wistful expression on her face. Daydreaming, Regina thinks, about whatever people like her daydream about. Sparkly rainbows? Ruining other people's lives?

Minutes pass. "Do you ever think about leaving?" Mary Margaret says at last. "Leaving Storybrooke, I mean."

"What? No, of course not. Why would I? This town is perfect for me."

"I don't know. I do sometimes, though. I think about just packing up and going somewhere else. Somewhere _different_."

"You won't," Regina says. Well, of course, she _can't_. 

Mary Margaret sighs. "Probably not. Doesn't mean I can't think about it. Sometimes... I don't know. Don't you think there ought to be more to life, somehow?"

"More than sitting in a supply closet? Yes, I think that, at least, I can agree with."

"That's not what I meant." But she seems to have nothing more to say on the subject, or perhaps simply to have given up this inane attempt at conversation. Good. Regina prefers the silence.

She sits and stares at the door, and, despite herself, she thinks about leaving. About walking out that door when it opens, and simply not stopping. She could. The curse isn't binding _her_ here. She could leave Storybrooke and go out into this new world, and never look back. But when she tries to imagine it, imagine what that would be like... She can't. Here she has power -- not magic, true, but power nonetheless. Here, even if they call her the Mayor, she is still the Queen. Here, she has her enemies. And she _needs_ her enemies.

"Neither of us is leaving this town, Ms. Blanchard," she says, at last. "Both of us belong here. I don't need to go anywhere else to have everything I want. And you... Well, you're already doing as well as can possibly be expected, aren't you? Poor dear. Sad as it is, I expect that vegetable in there is as close as you're ever going to come to finding True Love." 

Mary Margaret's face goes red, an amusing imitation of one of Regina's apples, but there's no anger in her voice, only sadness. "You really are a horrible person, aren't you? I feel sorry for you, Regina."

" _Don't_ ," she says, biting the word out. It's an end to the conversation, a royal command.

Silence falls again. There really does seem to be nothing more to say. 

Regina closes her eyes, sits up straight atop her plastic throne, and waits for someone to come and set her free.


End file.
